


Home

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night in London gives Grant the chance to see Jemma's home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

“Alright and I’ll be at the Bus in morning. Six o’clock sharp,” he overhears Jemma tell Fitz.

“Going somewhere?” he asks, surprised. He’d assumed she was just as exhausted as he was, not looking for some sort of night on the town in London.

“Home, actually. I have opportunity to sleep in my own bed for once, and I’m going to take it.”

“You’re from London?” he asks, realizing that besides the obvious ELgland and Scotland, he didn’t realize know where the team’s scientists were from.

“No, but I have a flat that I rent.”

That confuses him.

“We spend almost every night on the Bus, why would you pay for an apartment you never stay in?”

She shrugs. “I just like having a place of my own.”

His curiosity gets the best of him.

“Can I see it?”

He expects her to refuse, or at least put up more resistance. But instead, she grabs a black backpack off the chair next to her and hands it to him. It’s surprisingly heavy. 

“Fine, but you have to carry this.”

And with that she takes off, pulling her own suitcase behind her. He has no choice but to follow.

It takes two tube transfers and short walk for them to reach her building. It’s plain, but kept up well. They walk up two flights of stairs, during which he hands her the backpack and carries the suitcase, then down a short hallway to a door marked 2E. Jemma fits a key into the lock and pushes the door open.

It opens into a reasonably sized living room with a worn gray couch and a matching armchair. He’s not really sure what color the walls are, due to the giant bookshelves that cover on of them, and the brightly colored travel posters on the others.

“That’s a lot of books,” he says to her.

“A lot of them are for work, and some of them I brought over from my parent’s house when they moved,” she gestures towards two rows towards the far wall which hold books much brighter and thinner than the rest of the shelves. “They were mine when I was a child. Also, I keep a lot of back issues of scientific journals. Sometimes I have to refer to them. Fitz was supposed to scan them all so I could keep them on hand, but then we joined the team and had to leave London rather abruptly. He just didn’t have the time.”

“You were working in London?” he asked. He was starting to feel like he really didn’t know anything about Jemma.

“Yes. We were in a Sci-Ops satellite lab in Berlin for a few months after we left the Academy, then at the Hub for nearly a year, until we got our own space at the London lab. We still had to travel back the Hub regularly, for conferences and lectures and joint projects, though.”

She busies herself with the backpack now, opening it and removing even more books, which she puts on one of the less full shelves. As soon as she finishes she turns to him.

“Do you want the full tour? I’m afraid there isn’t much to show,” she gestures between two doors, one on either side of the living room.

“Sure, but you’re going to have to tell me about the posters later.”

All this information about apartments and labs in London has sparked his interest, he’s curious to see what else he can learn about Jemma.

They go through the doorway on the left, which leads them into a small kitchen. Aside from the necessary appliances, there isn’t much to see here, just a cream-colored teapot with a floral pattern painted onto it and some dark blue towels neatly folded on the counter.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have much to offer you. I cleaned out all the food before I left. I didn’t want anything to go bad or attract insects. There’s tea, though, and coffee and water. Probably a bottle or two of wine and maybe some sweets.” She opens the freezer door. Yes, there’s definitely chocolate.”

“I’m fine for now, thanks.”

From there she leads him back across the living room and into a short hallway with two closed doors.

She opens the first. It’s a bathroom, painted a bright peach color. Aside from the shower curtain, which is made to look like a map of the world, it’s unremarkable. She quickly leads him to the other door.

It’s not hard to guess that it’s her bedroom, even before she opens to the door. It’s painted light green and houses a bed, a desk, and a short bookshelf. There are some framed photos on top of the bookshelf, and he can clearly make out a photo of Jemma and Fitz in one of them, but otherwise it’s pretty bare. He assumes there were more decorations at one point, but she must have moved them to her bunk when she joined the team. Coincidentally, he’s never seen into her bunk either.

Their tour over, she leads him back to the living room.

“Are you sure I can’t get you anything to drink?” she asks again.

“No thanks.” 

She then excuses herself to kitchen to make her own up of tea.

He takes a seat on one end of the couch and takes in the room. There are six large posters on the walls, and a bunch of smaller ones in between. He even sees what he assumes are postcards hanging there. He can make out the Kuala Lumpur skyline in one photo, rice terraces in what he assumes is Bali, the Grand Canyon, a jungle scene with the word ‘Peru’ printed on it, the Charles Bridge in Prague, and a beach with clear blue water that he can’t place. He can’t make out the smaller posters as well, but it seems like a lot of beaches and large cities.

“You must have traveled a lot,” he remarks when she re-enters the room with her tea.

“Not really. I started University when I was twelve, and after I finished my first PhD I joined the Academy. Then I wait straight into lab work. There was never really any time for traveling. I’ve always wanted to, though.”

“So when Coulson requested you join the team…”

“I jumped at the change. The opportunity to do the job I love and see the world? It was any decision. Convincing Fitz to join me was a bit harder.”

“And did it live up to expectations?”

He’s eager to hear her answer. In the last six months she’s been shot at, contracted a deadly virus, jumped out a plane without a parachute, been attacked by an invisible assailant, held hostage by terrorists, and been stabbed twice, among other things. That’s not included in most vacation packages.

“For the most part. I’m not as fond of Peru as I used to be, so I should really take that poster down. But otherwise, I’d say it surpassed expectations.”

He’s glad to hear this. He worries about her sometimes, even since the first time she tried to sacrifice herself for the team.

“And it’s not just seeing the world that I enjoy,” she continues. “I’ve seen things in the field that I could never have gotten my hands on from the lab. I got to see an actual Asgardian up close. And there’s Coulson, and Skye, and May when she’s not scowling at my poor aim and lack of upper body strength. And you, of course.”

He’d never admit it, but he’s thrilled to know that he’s on the things she enjoys about the job, even if she said it in the same breath as the rest of the team.

“So it’s worth all the risks?” he asks.

“Definitely,” she says, rising from he armchair she’d settled into, empty teacup in her hand.

She yawns.

“It’s getting quite late and we have an early start tomorrow. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go to bed now, but you’re welcome to stay here if you’re not feeling up to the trip back to the hotel. I’ve been told the couch is fairly comfortable, and I have extra blankets.

Her offer is tempting, and here seriously considers it. Something about having her sleeping so nearby feels very intimate, even though it happens every night on the Bus.

“No thanks,” he declines and heads for the door. “I’ll see you in the morning, though.”

“Goodnight,” she opens the door for him.

He’s down the stairs and out the door quickly, hoping that the cool night air will shake the thought of Jemma and her books and her posters from his mind.

It doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 2 of Ward x Simmons Ship Week on tumblr, for the theme "home."


End file.
